Comments

Comment by Arador

Highest drop rate is from the Storming Wind-Rippers on the elementals plateau in Nagrand. You need a flying mount to get there.

Comment by sorcen

While the highest drop rate for Motes is still on the Elemental Plateau, the 2.0.7 patch nerfed the respawn rate on these mobs. Pre-patch there used to be at least one elemental active at all times. Each time you killed one, another one spawned at any of the 10'ish spawn locations. You could easily have 2 or 3 people farming there at once, and not have much downtime. Post-patch, the last mob killed doesn't auto-spawn a new one. This results in substantial downtime with multiple players camping the area. One player alone can farm almost continuously, but 2 or 3 players make grinding here very difficult and slow. This should drive up demand for Primals, and also have the added effect of more PVP to control who gets to farm, but will make farming more difficult.

Where before I could farm 4 primals and hour, while one or two other people were also camping the same elementals, I can now get about 3 primals if I'm all alone, and half that if there's one other person.

It's starting to feel like farming elemental fire at the Circle of West binding all over again.

Comment by Click

Don't even bother farming these anymore. Drop rates have been nerfed so bad, you'll be lucky if you get a Mote out of 10 kills. That's of course if you even get a kill. The mob respawn rates are terrible. Better off farming gold and buying them off the AH.

Comment by ewormafive

Yes, I can attest to the respawn rate dropping. It could be just because of the respawn rate being slower, but it even feels to me like the drop percentage was nerfed as well. It could have been just an unlucky couple of days, but only time will tell.

We'll see if it goes down any.

Comment by rlyeh

For a new source of these try heading to Shadowmoon Valley and farming the Enraged Air Spirits. I've had great drop rates there when i'm heading in to the altar for some Shadowcloth.

I didn't expect to get as many motes as I did, so I stayed a while to farm. Sometimes you run into some PvP near the altar with the Alliance tailors, but otherwise it's a nice place for people to farm who don't have their flying mounts. It's also very close to a flightpath. You can zip in, check the area for hostiles, down a few elementals, loot your motes and be off about your other business.

The last reason I suggest this is because of the high number of these mobs rolling around Shadowmoon. There is another area far to the north near the edge of the zone where they are plentiful and have yet to be ganked up there. Kind of a pain in the ass to get to though.

Comment by Leikeze

Way too crowded all the time.

Comment by wowheadere9090

I made a quick outline of where all the best places to farm motes are. Very useful if, like me, you are farming many of them for a recipe of some sort.

Mote of Mana:(Netherstorm) Mana Wraith - 36.60 and 31.73 (Anywhere above Area 52 and more below. While you're at it, kill the Nether Rays as well, they have just as good of a chance to drop and are mostly in the same area) - 25.8 - http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=18864

Mote of Life:(Zangarmarsh) I didn't find any specific place to farm for these because the zone is just rich with them. But I would suggest farming the Bogg/ Starving Bogg Lords and Fungal /Starving Fungal Giants because they are all very close. - The Spawning Glen (SW Zangarmarsh) and East of there is the Quagg Ridge - Very similar drop rates on all 4 mobs that I pointed out, 18.2 to 18.8 - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22575#00Rmz

Mote of Shadow:By far the most commonly found mote. This is dropped in almost every zone and can be easily farmed anywhere. But there may be a few exceptional areas just because npcs that drop them are close together, non-elite, and easy to kill. Here's one spot in a few that are exceptional: (Nagrand) Voidspawn - Again, no specific coords, but all around Oshu'Gun, the bigass crystal SW Nagrand. - 18.4 - http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=17981

Comment by Mulligan

The increase in damage that you will have to do to the Storming Wind-Ripper is about 33%. If you keep constant damage over time, it'll take you 33% longer to kill these mobs.

Now if the Storming Wind-Ripper has a 33% chance to drop 1-2 motes, and an Enraged Air Spirit has a 25% chance to drop 1-2 motes, the increase in drop chance from the Air Spirit to the Wind-Ripper is also 33%.

Statistically this says that both mobs will farm you motes of air efficiently given the following is satisfied:

1) The downtime between mobs is constant (meaning you don't move far, or you don't have to drink/eat as much).2) You play a class that can easily plow through 5k health just as well as 7k health.

If Option 1 is not true, then your best bet is Nagrand (because sometimes the Enraged Air Elementals are tough to find and move around).

If Option 2 is not true, then your best bet is to stay in Shadowmoon Valley because the mobs are very easy to kill, you just need to make sure you can get them with very little competition.

An advantage of farming the Storming Wind-Ripper is that if the air elementals are camped, you can always walk over and work on Motes of Water, Motes of Fire, or I guess Motes of Earth.

Comment by Roly

impossible to farm at plateau...from 04:00-to 03:00 its full. have to wait 5-6 min to 1 mob respawn, then must be the faster runner...

Comment by krufar

As a mage, being at the platform really doesn't take that much "downtime" I'm full fire, with clearcasting. 40% crit chance on fireball. Which gives me a nice mp5. The mobs die after 3 fireballs and a fireblast. That's 10 seconds per mob. Aswell, combining this with grinding the fire elementals. (Spellsteal the shield, and kill an fire elemental with it). Works pretty good.

As a fire mage you can grind this place easily. You need to drink once every 8 min, the other drink you take is your evocation. It does seem that the drop rate of motes of air is lower then the motes of water at the plateau though.

Comment by Dolinen

the Elemental Plateau is good for drop rate but man... is that place just over-farmed allllllll the freaking time. everytime i stop by there to see if maybe i can get a few hours of farming in, its choke-full of warlocks and hunters. if i try to hop on in and kill a few, since i'm Protection spec warrior, it takes me a bit longer to kill one of these elementals. so by the time i'm done killing one elemental, the 3 other warlocks and 3 other hunters have already cleared out any elemental that was even remotely near me. i've found that even though drop rate might be lower, my odds of farming more of the Motes of Air and Fire are a lot higher in Shadowmoon per hour than at the plateau. so yeah, elemental plateau if you're a warlock or hunter and want the company of other warlocks and hunters farming as well. for the rest of us, head to shadowmoon where competition is lower and mobs are easier to down equalling higher chance per hour for mote farming.

Comment by cowsgomoo62

I would have to say, this for me is the hardest primal in the game to farm. For an hours work, I get about one primal in Shadowmoon Valley, if that. Normally I always end up getting those stupid Elemental Fragments instead. When I go to check out Elemental Plateau, it's always farmed, even six in the morning. When you are trying to make Thunder, this is the hardest reagent to get.

Comment by Orie

Since Motes have a use function, you can drag them to your Action Bar to easily track how many you got while farming.

Comment by ezzy

I'm having a hard time with pointless farming when no motes are dropped by elementals for like 10 in a row or beasts who don't drop their own flesh at all...so f*n frustrating.

Comment by mpoy70

Comment by FancyPants

Has anybody noticed a reduced drop rate on these? Particularly from the Enraged Air Spirits in Shadowmoon Valley? I used to be able to farm between 4-6 Primals an hour, and now I am down to 1-2. I haven't confirmed the "new" drop rate with any tools yet, just simple observation, I will try to post back with some more concrete evidence. My interest has peaked because I now have much better gear than I used to, and I can two shot these guys if I get a couple of crits, so my rate of farming primals SHOULD have gone up, not down.

Also, I believe my observations to be credible because I have had to farm these A LOT for my tribal leatherworking epic set (I am currently only missing the chest piece), and I also have crafted the Windscale HoodSo that puts me at approx. 460 motes to date (I already have 8 primals for my chest piece) So needless to say, I have been farming these a lot in the past month or so, and the best success rate has been the Enraged Air Spirits in Shadowmoon, but if the drop rate has been nerfed, it would make me a sad panda.

Comment by Cutter

I have compiled a mini guide which is useful for pasteing into addons sucks as nIce Papyrus (notepad type addon for easy reading)

Comment by Seigata

For a quick tip on where to farm these, there are enraged earth spirits (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=21060) in shadowmoon valley that have a regular drop and dont have other players around taking all the kills or if it is a oposing faction killing you. Also not sure if someone has mentioned it but putting the motes on a action bar is a very good way to keep track of how many you grind.

Comment by embalm01

South of Shadowmoon Valley is a great place around 58,71.

Mobinfo 2 said i killed around 67 and got 39 mote of air, that's around 62% drop rate!

Comment by klausdieter

Comment by kiqs1489

you can buy these motes from an NPC from stormspire in Netherstorm.... all motes are there.........

Comment by Angrydorf

The scary thing about my server is the Shadowmoon Valley spot has about 4-5 people there constantly, and Elemental Plateau has none, go figure.

Comment by sapphyreseraph

I know it sounds really stupid, because of how bad these are, but I find that using http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7052 makes the eel farming a lot more enjoyable for us inpatient folks!

Comment by nisx

Atm i have 421 kills on Enraged Air Spirit in SMV (60,69) and i have 48% drop of Mote of Air.

Mobs respawn pretty fast and they are 69-70level and have ~5500hp

Comment by moenbase

From my experience the mote of air are dropped quite frequently from the air elemental mobs near Telaar. The smaller ones.Highly suggested to kill those or any air elemental on the way as well.Combine Engineering with Mining and you're gonna get a lot of Adamantite and Fel Iron ore, Motes of Fire and Earth as well.

Comment by glassthorne

If you are an engineer, then it's possible to farm for these motes using the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor in Nagrand. When running around Nagrand, you'll come across white clouds hovering overground. They are also constantly, but slowly, moving, so they will not remain in the same spot over a length of time.. With the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, you can suck the motes of air right out of them.

Usually you can get between 3-5 motes per cloud this way.

Engineers get the schematic for this device by completing the quest "The Zapthrottle Mote Extractor!" ( Horde // Alliance ) in Zangarmarsh.

You can use this extractor to acquire motes from other regions of the Outlands as well.

Comment by Alikat

Mother of Jebus. These have to be the most annoying and tedious item drops outside of boss drops. I'm assuming the Wowhead percent numbers count number of motes collected / elementals killed (as opposed to actual % of the time they will drop any) or they carried over obsolete information from previous patches when the rate was much higher, because those numbers are just fairy tales.

The drops at EP is decent enough, but the respawn rate can't handle more then two people at a time before you're just running around an empty field, so unless you can play at 5 in the morning, that's rarely a lucrative spot.

SMV (at least on my server) tends to have few people, but the drop is abysmal, maybe 5-10%.

Unless there's no one else on, or you're one lucky s.o.b., you can probably expect to get maybe one primal an hour. Perhaps that doesn't seem unreasonable to some, but I need 36 of those effers for Windhawk. Yeah.

Comment by WarTornPanda

This post no longer applies to modern server economies.

Comment by Vilkacis

Just farm whatever your class is good at and sell them on the AH, and buy the primals you need. Easist solution. Being a warlock, i can EASILY farm 10 Primal Waters an hour.

Comment by sentaiphreak

When using the mote extractor ir you happen to have a pair of epic engineer goggles, like Surestrike Goggles v2.0 you'll be able to see the clouds you can extract motes from on the mini map

Comment by Frehk

Get an Engineer to farm the clouds in Nagrand or become an Engineer yourself and use Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, an Engineer tool. You will find more clouds dropping these every time than mindlessly killing Air Elementals. I only got 1 mote after killing for over an hour. Gave up and took to the sky in search of clouds.

Comment by Vawdkah

I got 8 in about 10 kills. It's better to farm then to buy a primal air off AH for 43g.. >_>

Comment by vaeg

Assuming no competition (since not many people farm these) Shadowmoon valley is a much better place to farm these:Enraged Air Spirit

I was able to farm these, one shotting them, without running out, since the respawn rate is high enough. The elemental plane in nagrand is good, but I cleared them all in about 30 seconds, and then there is a long respawn timer.

Comment by staan

If motes of air had drop rate of I would be a rich man. Very rich man.

Comment by Dractulamede

Hmmm.... I tried to get some motes of air from the elemental plateau (post Cata) and no air elementals were present.

Comment by xxxstonie

Carefull !You can turn 10 (9) Motes of Air into 1 Primal Air.BUT You CANNOT Turn 1 Primal Air into 10(9) Motes !

Comment by plpgirl111

I agree with pretty much all the comments here, but here's my opinion. Shadowmoon landscape is really broken up so it makes it hard to farm PLUS there are very few, I've seen about 10 in 20 minutes of the elementals. Secondly, while the respawn rate may be high, now that the new patch is out, the Plateau was a ghost town! So you are able to score all the other elemental motes while you are trying to get your air. So good luck, but I'm sad everyone said to go to Shadowmoon and here I am flying about and being annoyed. :/

Comment by Frostythecritman

I go up to the plateau in Nagrand almost on a daily basis, AIR,FIRE,and WATER are all in the same area, drop rate seems to be ok. And since CATA came out primal air on my server sells easily for 150g a pop. Currently i am the only person on my server farming these i think as i never see them on the AH so its nice profit for little work. I mean you can spend like 2 hours or so farming that's easily 400g+.Way more than you would make from dailies.

EDIT** i timed the re spawn on those air ele's and it seems to be about 6min.

Comment by ShamanOne

All of the air elementals appear on land everywhere in Nagrand, but not upon water. However, they are most plentiful and spawned closest together on the "Elementals Plateau" which is an L-shaped area north and east of the Throne of the Elements in North-Central Nagrand. (I don't know the map coordinates.) It appears to me that it is accessible only with a flying mount, but I didn't examine all of the area for access via a road or trail.

The drop rate for all of the elementals in general is, in my experience, rather low but higher on the Elementals Plateau. In the course of completing quests, I have found and fought many of the air elementals but recovered only one Mote of Air. Even on the Elementals Plateau it took a significant amount of time and effort to collect 20 Motes of Air just to make 2 units of Primal Air. As a blacksmith I need 2 units of Primal Air and 2 units of Primal Fire as well as other mats to smith Felsteel Whirring Blades. However, since Heavy Knothide Leather is rarely, if ever, available on the Auction House, smithing that weapon will never happen!

Comment by rbuffetta

There most certainly is still an elemental plateau at the same location with the same elemental mobs that have been there since BC.

I go after the Netherskates as well, as they drop motes of mana and they're *right there*. The macro preferentially targets the elementals, though.

While the improved minimap will show you the position of your target, I find the hud option in the Sexymap addon makes the location of the next nearest one easier to sort out.

FWIW, the drop rate has been 37% with 84/227 dropping them.

Comment by social3ngin33rin

elemental plateau is terrible,over 3 min to respawn

Comment by Falynn

Drop rate from the Storming Wind Rippers in Throne of Elements seems to be significantly lower than 34% - I would say 20-25% at best, based on farming them over the past day or so.

The respawn rate is a bit long, but if you go farm the rest of the elementals while waiting there's potential to make a profit (and as a plus, if you have an alchemist and really need Primal Air, the water elementals drop motes for Primal Water which can be transmuted into Air).

Comment by Kyeld

Nagrand is the best place to farm these, but it's really a matter of being the best of the worst.

the respawn rate is pretty low and the drop rate (for me, at least) isn't anywhere near what's reported by wowhead.

I spent 2 hours on the elemental plateau tonight, farming the water, fire, and air mobs. after 2 hours, I ended up with 3 primal fires, 3 primal waters, and 1 primal air. additionally, the respawn rate seems to be about half what it is for the water/fire mobs.

my farming pattern was: air -> fire -> water -> fire -> water -> air

Comment by Discordian

I'd like to add that I've been farming air on the elemental plateau, right now it's taking between 6-7 minutes for the airs to respawn. I did shadowmoon a few months back and it seems to be around the same rate, but with the mobs spread out like they are there that it makes it seem like it goes faster. If you're needing to farm other motes, I'd suggest elemental plateau as you can clear two to three of the other elemental areas before the air respawns. The other elemental mobs take about the same amount of respawn time, too. Also, I don't know if it's my luck or whatnot, but I'm getting water and fire like mad. 50-60 motes of each of those compared to about 30 of the air. Best of luck everyone!

Comment by mojiko

Comment by Siob

It's probably written above.. but for certainty. The best way to farm these (with ten of these you can make primal air which you need for primal might; something enchanters like very much and (still) sells good (at least on my server). 1 Primal might round 450 G.

Elementals plateau in Nagrand... there are not that many. Storm Wind Rippers. So when you wait for respawn, you can get to the fire elementals for fire motes and to the water elementals for mote of water. Also great place to fish there for some good fish and more motes of water.

I had to wait 4 respawns to get 1 primal air... but the 'waiting' time was well spent...

Comment by dillybar

The drop rates listed here are way off. These are a lot more rare, at least on our server. Lucky to get one out of 6 dropping them.

Comment by Wimbleton

Maybe it was just because it was a Saturday. Maybe I'm just lucky. Well, that isn't true. My Mote of Air drop rate today was close to 35%.

Don't forget, while you're waiting for the respawns, you are allowed to kill the other elementals and sell their motes as well, not to mention the half-dozen greens that dropped. Boring, yes. A waste of time? I don't think so. Park your farmer there, run off a round, go to lunch. Come back, run off another round then switch to your uber Afflock who needs just one more piece of armor. Come back, run off another round...and you're done! Not too bad.

Comment by Mystterious

Now, in 2014, farm 10 mote for 1 primal air is VERY long. I wish we could slain Kalandrios, it's an air elemental npc near the good spot in Nagrand, to get mo' mote hahaha!

Comment by xergz

i just got 14 primals/hour just cloud farming in nagrand..over a 3 hr period.this is THE place to be!

Comment by Abmanju

Little price update:Twisting nether EU Horde, Motes of Air are now around 10-15g each.

The drop rates are accurate on here & therefore a pain to farm these in bulk.Even on a 180k pop server, Primal Air/Motes of Air are quite rare on the AH at sane prices & therefore really annoying to craft old items.